


Infatuated

by wrothmothking



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anidala Week 2019, F/M, Raider Anakin, Resistance Padmé, That's Not How The Force Works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 15:53:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18781420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrothmothking/pseuds/wrothmothking
Summary: The Force had to provide a different path off Tatooine that day, for Anakin Skywalker was not at work, nor at home, nor anywhere else in the city. But some destinies cannot be changed, and so Anakin and Padmé meet another way.





	Infatuated

**Author's Note:**

> Remember how in the TPM novelization Anakin saved a Tusken and guarded him through the night? This AU branches off of that, where the raider sees a useful, kind child slave and kidnaps adopts him. As it's canon that they're against slavery and go up against slavers, I'm assuming for the sake of this fic that they have a good idea of how to get rid of the bomb transmitters. 
> 
> Originally written for day 6 - family, but I got Tired. :( Sorry. Thankfully, the organizer(s) of Anidala week included a free day for me to use as catch-up. :D

Outlanders. Four of them: three human, one zabrak, arguing, making halting repairs on their derelict shuttle. Sparks fly, curses follow. The coming night winds prevent Anakin from following the conversation, but judging by the body language, the conflict rests mainly between the uniformed black man and a woman of fair skin and delicate dress. It's not hostile; the man's hiked-up shoulders and pained hesitation speak of aggression borne from concern, and the woman's warm eyes and open posture suggests gratitude, even though she refuses to give ground.

"It doesn't look like they have anything worth salvaging..."

"This was a waste of time. Let's go."

A'Jarl follows him down the dune. "They're not leaving by themselves," he says, but it's a token protest at best.

"The desert will bury them soon enough. What's the point in hassling dead men?"

"You have too much heart, A'Ni."

Anakin scoffs, and doesn't reply.

Their banthas await them. Espa leans into his greeting pet, and allows Anakin astride. Wary of outlanders sent to scout for civilization, they continue their patrol in silence. As the suns sink lower, sinking beyond the horizon, Anakin wonders if moving along had been the right call after all. If, perhaps, the outlanders will survive to wander deeper into their tribe's territory, to their village itself. If, perhaps, there was something precious in that shuttle, unseen, a precious gem to leverage a fair deal with traders or medicine for Meirin's bad leg. He's paid more in blood for no reward.

It was only after they finished their circuit at the lookout shelter with no other notable happenings that they relaxed.

"Sorry to cut this short..."

"Get out of here."

"You truly don't mind? If the boss finds out, we'll all be in trouble."

"Make sure he doesn't find out, then."

Though he can't see it, Anakin can feel A'Jarl's grin, full of mischief and honest joy.

A'Jarl's decision to mate the chief's son had yet to be approved, but neither of them knew much of patience. Tor'ur's wrath would've concerned Anakin had the whole village not been aware his hesitance came not from doubting A'Jarl's worth, but a need to hold onto his youngest as long as he could. Until marriage, they shared a home. Not that threat of execution could stop Anakin from helping a friend, much to said friend's dismay.

It is after the other is gone from sight, while sharing water with an exhausted Espa, that a Thought occurs to Anakin. A pesky little idea, promising terrible trouble should things go awry. And when Anakin is involved, things do that: _they go awry._

Espa could make the journey there, but should he fall asleep while Anakin works, there would be no moving him until sunlight. Fifteen years they've been bonded, and in that time Anakin has left his side a total of seven times, including this instance. To be leaving him alone...

Still. There's nothing stopping Anakin once he's made a decision, including Anakin himself. Nuzzling Espa's forehead, he assures, "I'll be back before you know it. And you? You'll be fine. Not even a horde of mad krayt dragons could take you down. I love you."

Espa butts him gently in the chest, earning a fond chuckle. Tuskens aren't a tactile people, but affection with their bantha partners has always been strongly encouraged. For a human who came to them touch-starved, Espa has been his rock.

The shuttle is, unsurprisingly, unmoved. Whether its people have abandoned it or retreated inside it, he doesn't yet know.

He moves silent as a wraith, gaderffii stick slung casually over his shoulder. The exterior damage they had been so troubled over, blasts to the rear, he writes off as cosmetic. Moving on, the _whirr_ of the doors sliding open sends his heartbeat racing, his ears straining to pick up any activity. Battle-worn he may be, but it is not a fight he has come looking for, though it is his due as a member of a Tusken tribe. Every year, the Hutts and the Empire both grow more bold, extending their reach farther into the wilds. Whatever side this particular troupe has allied themselves with, they are invading.

After counting to thirty, Anakin slinks inside.

It's clean. Sterile. White. Oddly spacious. Even as a slave to the colonists, he'd never come upon a vessel like this.

Spying the zabrak and the second woman curled up in hammocks, Anakin relocates.

The back room is storage and a small medical area. It is also where the black man has lain himself to sleep. Keeping an eye on him, Anakin shuffles through the loot, picking out antibiotics, vitamins, bandages, and a couple shiny items he can't name, but hopes to be valuable. He finds nothing for pain. Disappointing.

As he moves up towards the cockpit, the remnants of his common sense try to dissuade him from the second phase of his plan. Every second spent here he risks discovery. But...

_"The biggest problem in this galaxy is that no one helps each other."_

His mom used to say that.

Anakin's first few years a raider, he thought about her every day. Nowadays, she seems a dream, incorporeal.

An act of kindness, to repay what he takes. She would approve of that, he thinks.

In the pilot seat, he finds the missing passenger, softly snoring. It's distracting, yet cute. Judging by the lines around her eyes, she's been in need of proper rest.

Keeping his staff well at hand, he drops into the other chair. By a stroke of serendipity, ship diagnostics are already pulled up on the screen. She must have fallen asleep while they were running. As expected, the damage from blaster fire is inconsequential. Engine's fine.

He stops. His eyes dart back to the first line, run through again. He's seen this before, working on a ship belonging to one of Watto's "friends". A ship reacquired when its new masters died in a crash two months after they won it in the races. These people were blessed with a better pilot.

While difficult to detect, it's an easy fix. A manual restart would create some noise, however...Would they follow a mysterious note, if he leaves one? Which option is the foolish one?

He could re-plug the wire, count on them to try the classic on-and-off again fix on their own.

That decided, Anakin queries the computer for blueprints. Popping open the specified panel, wincing at the blip of noise, Anakin puts the wire back in place and-

He's being watched.

Leaping to his feet, he catches her hand before it reaches her blaster. He does not expect a knife to appear in her other, barely managing to block it with his staff before it sinks between his ribs but then her arm is twisting-

"Oh." She pauses, brows furrowed. "You're one of the Sand People."

"Yes, and I mean you no harm."

"You speak Basic?"

"We're not the savages your people claim us to be."

She flushes, retracts her blade. Where it disappears to, Anakin can't see. "Of course."

Letting her go, Anakin sits. "I'm sorry for scaring you. I've learned to expect hostility."

"If harm is not your intention, then what is?"

"Scavenging," he answers, honest. "What is your intention?"

"To kill Jabba the Hutt."

His mouth goes dry. "That's a noble goal."

"The Sand People quarrel with him?"

"The Tusken Raiders quarrel with all slavers."

Her smile is beautiful, intoxicating. Anakin suddenly finds it hard to breathe.

"I'm Padmé."

"Anakin. People call me-"

"Ani?"

She says it different than A'Jarl. She says it like Mom, like the old shopkeeper who slipped him free sweets.

And there's a weight to it, like it reminds her of something sad. Though it pains him to hurt her, he can't deny himself this connection to his past.

"Yeah." Cautious: "How'd you know?"

"It's a common name, I guess."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"It wasn't mine, but thank you."

The exhileration of their meeting wears off. Now, he just feels out of place.

Nodding his head, Anakin closes the panel. "You were sabotaged. A manual restart, and you'll be back in order."

"Sabotaged?"

"Yes." Standing, Anakin offers a stiff bow. "Be careful."

"You're leaving?"

"I have to return to my tribe by sun-up. I wish you well."

"Wait!"

Anakin turns to look at her. She's standing, a familiar determination steeling her spine.

"The Hutts have too powerful a presence for Jabba's loss to ruin their operations here."

He frowns. "It would still hurt."

"Is that what you want?"

"No. I want them dead."

A shadow of regret flickers across her face; a measure of softness, buried swiftly under the weight of duty. That, and the laundary list of Jabba's misdeeds.

"Me, too. But we can't do it on our own."

"Boss won't work with the Empire."

"We're not imperials! We're part of the Resistance, fighting to restore the Republic."

Anakin hums, unimpressed. "Two names, same beast."

Padmé deflates. "I'll admit the Republic sometimes failed its people. Sometimes, it was downright unjust. But the Empire--the Empire may have started as its mutation, but since then it's become so diseased no one with sanity or compassion can survive it."

Tilting his head, Anakin stares into her. "You're desperate for this. He has someone you care about, someone you care deeply for."

With no little hesitation, Padmé shares, "She reminds me of my mother. Talking with her has become a balm these last few years."

"You're the one who sabotaged the shuttle."

"Captain Typho wanted to go back. I make no apologies for it."

"There are four of you."

"We have the force on our side, and it won't be the first time we've taken back a planet together."

Twirling his staff in hand, Anakin considers her. The Hutts are a shared enemy, and the Resistance has done nothing to harm the Tuskens. Yet.

Padmé meets his gaze through his goggles, resolute.

"I can only promise myself. Tomorrow, at dusk, I'll give you an answer for the others."

"Thank you, Ani."

With a heavy head and a heavy heart, Anakin flees.

* * *

"I don't like this," Kor'ur says, staring down the bank. "Aliens bring trouble. Nothing else."

"No one will touch you," A'Jarl promises, voice low. He huddles close, but keeps his hands to himself.

Father always has been a stickler for the old ways. Not once has Anakin seen his face.

"Watch your words around my eldest, child."

Kor'ur scoffs. "A'Ni doesn't count. Even though he's the reason we're here."

"The reason we're here is to put an end to the Hutts' infestation. Nothing more."

"Understood."

As one, they set out. Padmé greets them with a smile and nod, and waits for them to speak first.

"I am A'Mogr, father to A'Ni and A'Jarl. Our fourth is Kor'ur, son to Tor'ur, clan chief. We welcome you."

"Padmé Amidala, of the Resistance. With me: Captain Typho, Sabé, and Maul."

"This is all you brought?" Typho asks.

"Four, to match your number," Father confirms. "We would not risk a whole tribe on an outsider's whim."

"Why come at all?"

Despite the tone, Padmé appears unbothered. "Thank you, for taking this chance on us."

Says Sabé, "We'll make it enough."

A'Jarl makes a comment Anakin doesn't hear, because Maul is staring at him, expression unreadable, his eyes red-lined gold--unnatural, sickly. Unsure of what else to do, Anakin looks calmly back.

There's something different about him, something that makes him feel somehow more alive than the others. Barring Padmé. Two beacon fires, one crafted of age-old rage and pain, bitterly guarded, and the other a fountain of comfort and strength.

A laser sword hangs on his belt.

Jedi were supposed to be extinct.

He used to dream of becoming a jedi, freeing his people--his mother.

"I don't like this plan," A'Jarl whispers to him.

Distracted, Anakin, on instinct, draws on Padmé presence to force a halfway-genuine smile despite his covered face and says, also in Tusken, "Relax. It'll be fun.

"For Jabba, maybe. When he slaughters the lot of us."

"If your nerves contaminate the others and cause a panic in the middle of the assault, then yes. I'm sure that's exactly what will happen."

Typho narrows his eyes at the exchange, no doubt curious and potentially suspicious, but he holds his tongue.

Father makes no comment to them, though the words he next directs at the outlanders serve their double purpose: "This plan is last-minute, and you are no friend, but the things Jabba has done, to us, to the colonials, to you and yours, it ends here, however it must."

Padmé smiles. "Then we're agreed."

Kor'ur barks an order to the hills, and their bantha come rushing down. Typho tenses, and Sabé's hand makes an aborted twitch towads her blaster, but no harm comes of it.

"You can ride with me, Padmé," Anakin invites, and when her focus finally shifts to him, his heart begins to pound. As Espa approaches, his leisurely stroll corrupted with the excitement of meeting new people not trying to kill them, Anakin forgets his earlier distress and tells himself to enjoy today. It will likely be the last he ever sees of her.

Perhaps it's for the best. There's no sense to his instant infatuation. Father and the tribe as a whole certainly wouldn't approve; adults are seldomly brought in in comparison to the already-rare non-Tusken children. Assuming Padmé would be at all interested in remaining on Tatooine, which, considering her ties to the Resistance and her seemingly dutiful nature, would be out of the question.

But he's getting ahead of himself.

Espa greets Padmé like an old friend, dipping his head low to snuggle into her sternum. She giggles, petting his great forehead. Feeling a bit neglected, Anakin sidles up next to them and scratches under Espa's jaw.

After helping Padmé up and squeezing in in front of her, Anakin's disappointed to learn his layers hide their contact. He distracts himself from the embarassing situation by questioning Padmé on her people; small, but large things, like their music, their pets, their celebrations. He burns to ask about their technology, particularly their ships, but he doesn't want to spook her, make her doubt his intentions. It's a wariness he's not used to, his experience dealing with strangers being basically none--outside warfare, of course. Anyone among the tribe could attest that Anakin doesn't have a nefarious bone in his body.

It is as they reach the end of the trek, as they dismount, that the danger Padmé is about to be in cements in his gut. She's beyond capable, he's sure, but she doesn't know the monsters of Tatooine like he does.

Somehow, that thought leads to him standing at her shoulder before Jabba, bare-faced, eyes locked with a ghost.

"Since you don't trust us to follow through on our end," he'd said, "why not make me the second prisoner?"

Father had been furious at the suggestion, not for the threat it presented to Anakin's life, but for the fact he had to remove his helm for it. Jabba enjoyed watching his prey squirm, and there was no market for Tuskens.

(Padmé had gone quiet at the reveal. He wondered if she liked him less as a human.)

Yet he would suffer this humiliation a hundred more times, just to see her again. Even were the universe to promise that nothing more could come from this.

Mom looks well, better-rested and fuller-cheeked than she was in his dreams. A new scar crept along her jaw, the sight of it instilling an unseemly rage in him.

An explosion shakes the ground. Two others sound off, closer, the ceiling trembles, the tables fall, Anakin reaches for his mother and holds her close as panic ensues. 

* * *

Jabba's fortress has been razed. He should never have opened his door to them.

"Oh, Anakin," she sighs, her hands holding his face, "how you've grown. You look exactly as I thought you would." Tears spring to her eyes. "I'm sorry I never found you."

"No, no, Mom, it's okay."

Banthas crest the hill. "A'Ni?"

Fear sharpens his spine. "Father, meet Mother."

Father's approach is slow; Kor'ur grabs A'Jarl and leads him away, to the bonfire the outlanders have gathered themselves around.

He misses the warmth of his mother's hands when she lets him go, turning to face Father with no little hostility. Anakin hates it, hates the tension that so suddenly came when he introduced them.

"Are you the one that took him?"

"Why?"

"He saved my life, so I did the same for him."

She sighs. "I see."

"Mom?"

Her hand comes up to smooth his brow. "You had no future with me, Ani. It broke my heart to be apart from you, not knowing if you were hurt, hungry, or even alive. All I could hope was that someone had taken you, loved you, protected you like I never could. Watto would have killed you one day, if you stayed, with his fists or those stupid races."

Tears flow down his face, unbidden. Anakin doesn't try to stop them.

"You should go with her."

" _Father?_ Wait--Mom, you're leaving?"

"My place is with the resistance, now, Ani, and never with your tribe." She turns a glare to Father. "Who I would hope is not trying to kick you out."

"Never," Father promises.

And removes his helm.

Anakin gasps. There are scars, dozens, from burns and blades, crisscrossing his skull. Fresh bruising puffs up his left cheek. But he is beautiful, and family, and Anakin loves him so much in this moment that the idea of leaving his side is like a shot to the gut.

Father closes the gap between them, presses their foreheads together. "I have loved you from the moment I met you, A'Ni, and I have been so proud to call you my son. You will always have a place with our tribe, but now is the time for you to see the galaxy, to see all those stars, just as you've dreamed."

"But I don't want to go," he whispers. "I don't want to leave you!"

"You can't; I have long been a part of you. And just as you want to stay, I, too, have felt the pull of your heart since you met Padmé."

"Padmé?"

Anakin blushes.

Saying goodbye to Kor'ur is the easiest, A'Jarl the hardest. Their hug lasts a lifetime, and not near long enough.

Stepping onto the shuttle, changing into Resistance colors, sitting in the co-pilot seat, sleeping pressed between his mother and first love on a blanket pallet, none of it feels real.

None of it, until he and Padmé share their first kiss in the icy winds of Hoth, parts of an exploded droid scattered around them. 


End file.
